How Does The Fate of the Furious End?

A Basic, Spoilery Play-by-Play of That Bonkers Fate of the Furious Ending

It feels like just yesterday we were watching Brian O'Conner go undercover to infiltrate Dominic Toretto's gang of street racers in The Fast and the Furious, but alas we're already on the franchise's eighth movie: The Fate of the Furious. Since all of the Fast and Furious movies have had the core theme of the importance of family, the latest installment feels like a departure of sorts. Dom (Vin Diesel) betrays his team and spends much of the movie reluctantly double-crossing them under the watchful eye of Cipher (Charlize Theron), an extremely powerful, ruthless hacker. Will our beloved, car-obsessed family ever be whole again?! (If you haven't seen the movie yet, we suggest you turn back now. If you're a sucker for spoilers like me, then hi, welcome, please keep reading.)

When the movie begins, Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are in the midst of enjoying a passionate honeymoon in Havana, Cuba. While grabbing coffee one morning, he's approached by Cipher (and her extremely long, bleached-blond dreads), who informs him that he's going to work for her now in a conversation that plays out roughly like this:

Dom: Um, sorry? What was that? I don't work for anyone but myself.Cipher: I'm holding your ex-girlfriend and the infant son you had no idea existed hostage on my private plane.Dom: *squints angrily*

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After that, Cipher has Dom under her thumb. With his help she's able to steal an EMP device from Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) as well as a briefcase containing nuclear launch codes. The team, especially Letty, is confused and furious (wink, wink) about his choice to stab them in the back, and eventually they all converge at a remote submarine station in Russia. Armed with the nuclear launch codes, Cipher plans to hack into the submarine there, break it out into the open ocean, and save the nuclear weapons aboard for a rainy day (she views them as a way to hold the world's leaders "accountable").

At this point, Cipher has already had Tormund from Game of Thrones (Kristofer Hivju) shoot Elena (Dom's baby mama) in the head, leaving only Dom's son alive as an insurance policy that he'll help her get what she wants. Fortunately he convinces Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) and his brother Owen (Luke Evans) to help save his son from the plane while it's midair, a mission which they're able to pull off. With the baby in safe hands, Dom is free to rejoin the team and put a stop to Cipher's plan, which she's conducting from the safety of an armored room in her plane. He drives his car off of a massive snowy cliff (literally) and lands unscathed (of course) on the frozen-over bay that his team is racing across in a desperate attempt to close the sea wall that will keep the submarine from reaching open water.

With members of the Russian military launching missiles at them left and right, as well as being forced to fend off a bunch of men from Cipher's crew, Dom's family is not looking good (especially Roman, who was literally dragged through freezing water on the door of a Lamborghini). Luckily Dom swerves into the path of some of the military trucks, causing them to blow each other up, as well as most of Cipher's men. Here's exclusive footage of the group trying to decide whether or not they should trust him again.

Spoiler alert: they do, immediately. Left without a force on the ground, Cipher decides her only option is to remotely ram the submarine through the ice underneath the united team, in hopes that they'll all drown and she'll emerge victorious. The only cars she manages to destroy, of course, are the remaining Russian military trucks. Sad!

Growing desperate, she launches a heat-seeking missile at Dom and the team. He tells them all to peel off and fires up the giant bonfire (Fiery trunk engine, maybe? Forgive me, I don't know anything about cars.) that's conveniently on the back of his car. The missile latches on to him, and after zigzagging across the ice for a while, he circles back and JUMPS THE SUBMARINE while simultaneously shutting the bonfire off the back of his car, so that the missile blows up the submarine instead. He dramatically rolls out of the car and the rest of the team floors it over to him to protect him from the blast. As Cipher realizes she's out of options — Deckard has killed every single guard on her plane (while carrying Dom's son, no less) and he's about to kill her, too — she parachutes out of the side of the plane and disappears.

The team welcomes Dom back with open arms, and the movie then flashes forward to them having an afternoon BBQ on the rooftop of a building in NYC. Like most Fast and Furious movies, the final scene is of them all laughing and joking around a long picnic table, sharing food, smiles, and jokes at Roman's expense. Dom introduces them all to his son, who he touchingly announces that he's named Brian.